The phenomenological methods used to analyze the unique characteristics contributing to the stability of a small mid-western rural town may be useful tools for community researchers, providing an inexpensive, non-technical, humanistic-interpretive research approach. General concepts associated with community success were formulated through direct…

The concept of behavior settings--the environments shaping individual behavior--was originated by Roger Barker in 1950 in connection with his community surveys in a small Kansas town, code-named Midwest. This book seeks to provide rural social scientists with an understanding of Barker's eco-behavioral approach and proposed adaptations of it to…

Contemporary scholars researching the courts' impact on schools would profit from examining the well-funded studies conducted in the 1960s and early 1970s. This article discusses the substance of early judicial impact research and explores its relevance for today. Most 1960s impact studies dealt with United States Supreme Court decisions in three…

A 1983 four-community survey of 220 rural Utah households had as its central analysis issue the extent to which conflict plays a modulating role in linking network positions. Not only do most network analysis approaches reflect an implicit assumption that network ties involving conflict are mutually exclusive from and incompatible with support…

This document comprises a collection of workshop papers addressing the issues of doing research on the complex social and human problems faced in any community from an Asian American perspective. The following topics are discussed: (1) the nature of community research; (2) the pros and cons of pure basic and applied research; (3) the nature and…

Humanistic geography is similar to ethnography in that both are concerned with describing actions and events in terms of their meaning to those experiencing them; humanistic geography is particularly concerned with understanding subjective social space: space as perceived by members of particular human groups. A humanistic geography case study,…

Asserts that, although research can be a powerful resource in guiding and fueling grass-roots social change, the community-based research enterprise often is contentious. Recommends collaborative research studies in which the researchers and practitioners work together from the project's inception. (CFR)

Using techniques of the reputational method to study community power structure, this report identifies components of power structure in a Tennessee school district, demonstrates that proven methodologies can facilitate educational leaders' reform efforts, and serves as a pilot study for further investigation. Researchers investigated the district…